England 2 Spain 2
Lallana 9(pen) Vardy 48 Aspas 89 Isco 90+4.59
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In friendlies, we try harder than most other teams
And we almost won this game against a depleted Spain, who were without six of their superstars.
Spain, rattled by Jamie Vardy’s ferocious follow-through on Azpilicueta early on, were going through the motions in the first half.
I’m a big Vardy fan but JV was very lucky not to get a yellow card from the Romanian referee, who just gave a free-kick.
When a killer pass from Lallana released Vardy into the box, former Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina brought the striker down. Once again the ref, seeing a clear penalty, pointed to the spot but refrained from booking Reina.
Lallala slotted beautifully to give Engerland a flying start.
Second half, Sterling found Vardy on the left of the box and the Leicester striker hooked the ball back across the box into Sterling’s run and when a defender headed the ball out, skipper Jordan Henderson wasted no time in returning it to the far post, where Vardy threw himself forward to score a terrific header that put England 2-0 up.
That was Vardy’s first goal since September 10th and his teammates were thrilled for him. After going 14 games without a goal, he seemed to have wrapped this game up.The crowd started doing Mexican waves, a habit I detest.
Jesse Lingard wriggled round Reina but his cross was cleared. Soon after that, sub Marcus Rashford also took the ball round Reina but the kid was going so fast he could not keep himself or the ball on the pitch.
Then sub Diego Aspas picked up a swift counter-attack, Stones hesitated and allowed Aspas to lash a fierce shot past sub keeper Tom Heaton. The ball went in off the far post and Joe Hart would not have saved that shot.
2-1 and it was suddenly a different ball-game.
England had been the better side for most of those 89 minutes but Spanish pride was stung when they went 2-0 down and the game had swung their way when the big experienced Alvaro Morata came on.
The contest was well into the 95th minute when Real Madrid scored a fine goal.
Right back Carvajal aimed a lovely ball into the box and found teammate Isco, who had made an untracked diagonal run of almost 50 yards. Isco chested the ball neatly and hit a shot that bounced through the legs of Heaton.
VERDICT:
Southgate’s team showed me more last night than Hodgson’s sides ever did.
A great shame that Adam Lallana, our best player, had to go off injured in 24 minutes.
He was replaced by Theo Walcott, who fluffed a good chance to make it 3-0.
Jamie Vardy plays with far more fire and conviction than Walcott.
And it was nice to see Vardy score a spectacular Michael Owen goal.
Yes, English football is backward in some ways.
But we lose a lot if we copy the continentals too much.
Pepe Reina’s comment was: “They are really quick. They have some pace up front.They are aggressive, they press well, they run a lot and they are well-organised. A draw was a fair result.”
Spain’s new manager Julen Lopetegui knows he has to re-shape the national team and use younger players, so he picked an experimental side to have a look at some different combinations.
When he went 2-0 down, he brought on some far better players who quickly scored two goals. So he got a draw and learned quite a lot, methinks.